What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

and drew forth the single piece of parchment from within.
    She’d read it perhaps a hundred times already, but now she read it again, drawn by something she didn’t care to define, to this strange recital of that long-ago sin, written in Sophia Hendon’s own hand. Amanda couldn’t begin to guess what had driven her mother to set it all down in such stark, bare sentences, and then swear to it before witnesses. Nor did Amanda know how that harlot, Rachel York, had come by such a curious document, or for what purpose it had been intended. But Amanda had no doubt that the document had come from the actress.
    Her blood still stained one corner.
    It was Coachman Ned who’d first let slip the truth about that Tuesday night—or at least, the truth as he knew it. It had taken some time—and a few carefully worded threats—but eventually Amanda had drawn from him a curious tale, of how his lordship had been on his way to Westminster when he’d come upon Master Bayard, insensible with drink, on the footpath in front of Cribb’s Parlor. They’d taken the boy up into the carriage, of course. Only, they hadn’t brought him straight home. Onhis lordship’s orders, Coachman Ned had continued on to Great Peter Street, in Westminster, where his lordship had left the boy in the servants’ care.
    It was not a servant’s place, of course, to question his master’s movements, although Coachman Ned admitted he’d been worried, watching Lord Wilcox disappear alone and on foot into that stinking fog. And his worst fears had been confirmed when, some twenty or thirty minutes later, Lord Wilcox had been set upon by thieves. He came staggering back to the carriage, his assailants’ blood drenching the front of his overcoat and still dripping from the sword stick he’d used to fight them off. He’d given Coachman Ned strict instructions that her ladyship was not to be told of the incident, lest it overset her nerves. He’d used the same line, Amanda eventually learned, to keep his valet, Downing, mum as well.
    Bayard had snored insensible through it all. But Amanda wondered at the two servants, who surely knew her to be impervious to the kind of nervous spasms that troubled so many of the ladies of her station. She wondered, too, how they could have remained so unquestioningly believing when the gory details of what had happened that night in the Lady Chapel of St. Matthew of the Fields were on everyone’s lips. But then, perhaps neither Coachman Ned nor Downing had ever noticed the way his lordship’s face could draw taut with sexual excitement at the sight of a harlot being whipped through the streets. Perhaps they didn’t know about the string of housemaids he’d forced over the years, or the one he’d cut when she tried to refuse him. But Amanda had known, and pondered, and eventually been driven to ferret out the truth.
    Refolding the parchment, Amanda carefully tucked it away and slid the secret compartment home. She wondered what Wilcox had thought, when he’d discovered the document missing. It was only by chance that Amanda had come upon it when she went looking for something—anything—that might confirm what in her heart of hearts she already knew to be the truth. The other papers she’d found with the affidavit—love letters from Lord Frederick to someone named Wesley and an interesting royal birth certificate—she left where she had found them, for they were of no significance to her. But her mother’s confession Amandahad taken without hesitation. A document of that nature was too volatile, too potentially valuable to be left in the hands of someone such as Martin.
    She was so lost in thought that she missed the sound of the door quietly opening. It was only the change in the atmosphere of the room that told her, suddenly, that she was no longer alone. Turning her head, she found Sebastian leaning against the doorjamb.
    She knew a moment of consternation at the thought he had seen her with their mother’s affidavit. Then she realized he was looking at her, not the writing desk, and she knew he had not.
    “Where is he?” Sebastian demanded in a taut, menacing voice. “Where’s Wilcox?”
    “You seem to make it a habit of entering other people’s houses uninvited,” she said, ignoring the question.
    He pushed away from the door frame and came at her, his terrible amber eyes on her face. “You know, don’t you? For how long? How long have you known?”
    In spite of herself, Amanda took a step